Women in Law Enforcement

This essay will analyze the relation of women to law enforcement. Even though women make up more than 51 percent of the American population, their representation on the police forces, the first line of law enforcement, usually hovers around 10 percent. The primary challenge of this essay will be to examine the possible reasons for this inequity. It will begin with a historical overview. Then we shall examine women in the police and patrol agencies around the United States. This will be followed by a brief analysis of women in other aspects of law enforcement -- making the laws, prosecuting the laws, and judging the laws.

Throughout European history up until the Early 20th Century, the role of policing society, preserving order, enforcing the laws, and arresting those who break the laws, was considered to be an ordained male responsibility. However, the continuance of one of the oldest crimes -- prostitution -- was seen as a major social problem and one that needed police supervision.

The French had developed a special unit called the police des moeurs, to regulate female prostitutes and the suspected premises involved. As Emsley points out

Recognizing the difficulties which could arise if policemen alone were required to arrest and hold women in custody, possibly even to search them, women began to be employed in police stations specifically to deal with female suspects (Emsley, 1999, 102).

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termined that the LAPD discriminated on the basis of sex. Since then, the LAPD has been ordered twice by the court to increase its numbers of women, a mandate that has been largely ignored, records show (Iannone & Iannone, 2000, 244). In fact, there is evidence that there is a covert all- male organization within the LAPD called Men Against Women, whose ultimate objective was to drive women from the force using harassment and intimidation. The group was formed over beers in the 1980s following a federal court order demanding the department hire more women officers (Iannone & Iannone, 2000). A 1995 survey of female police officers in a medium-sized department found that 68 percent of the women had been sexually harassed while on the job by a member of their agency. In addition, many of the problems faced by women in policing exist because law enforcement agencies do not take women into account in the workplace. In addition, supervisors are often not trained in department policies on pregnancy or childcare assistance. Uniforms and equipment are often not ordered in women's sizes. And physical education instructors do not properly pace female recruits, which results in injuries; and, ultimately, a disproportionate number of w

Category: Government - W